Impeach Obama for bribery? Anti-ACTA spin reaches new lows

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is misguided, but often not for …

Given easy access to the Internet, the source of so much information, one might expect that Internet activists would be the best informed on the facts. But the continuing recent debate over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) reminds us that, even in the Internet age, truth is a quick casualty of war.

SOPA-style site takedowns

We already debunked the idea that ACTA demands ISPs to monitor their users for copyright infringement. But a similar claim has been widely repeated: ACTA is basically SOPA in that it envisions takedowns of specific websites.

As a recent DailyTech article put it, "Say a foreign business wants to get rid of its American e-commerce portal rival. It could simply masquerade as a reviewer and post a link to infringed content (e.g. a torrent on The Pirate Bay) and then turn around and request a takedown. Bam! The successful American firm would be out of the picture, at least until it could prove its innocence weeks later after millions in lost business."

This has so little basis in the actual ACTA text it's hard to know what to say. It's simply fantasy. Nothing in ACTA asks any signatory to allow takedowns of entire websites, in other countries, based simply on a letter, and because of something like a single user-submitted link to infringing content. (ACTA footnote 13 expressly allows countries to provide "safe harbors" to Internet-based operators.)

ACTA does require countries to provide for judicial injunctions to stop piracy, but such injunctions have been hallmarks of the European and US law for an extremely long time. However, as with most parts of ACTA, the language is extremely broad and certainly doesn't require anything like the doomsday scenarios envisioned above.

Impeach Obama?

Yes, President Obama is responsible for overseeing the ACTA signing and allowing the process to continue. But ACTA began under President Bush, whose US Trade Representative (USTR) helped craft the ACTA approach. The agreement is more a product of the terrific power of copyright holders, especially at places like USTR, and an excellent example of their multiple-front fight for ever-tougher enforcement. They fight in Congress, in the Executive branch, through the courts, and internationally; shut down something like SOPA and you'll find the groundwork already laid elsewhere for things like ACTA.

Given this reality, statements like this one from DailyTech, border on the unhinged (see if you can find the bonus Nazi allusion in the piece):

Under such a common sense principle, President Obama appears to have accepted a bribe to violate the US Constitution and the highest political office [by signing ACTA], thus he should be impeached under this definition.

This is in reference to an administration routinely criticized for being too close to Google and which Hollywood is publicly threatening over the White House refusal to back SOPA. Deranged.

Secret, but not anymore

These articles also claim that ACTA's secrecy—certainly one of its most obvious real flaws—was far more extreme than it actually was. "A handful of nations have defied the U.S. and published the latest draft of ACTA," wrote DailyTech. "ACTA is being carried out in secret through the use of executive orders, so in effect it isn’t available for public review, you can’t read it," wrote another author in a follow-up at the site pnosker.

Even a key Anonymous Twitter account, AnonyOps, reacted to our last article on Anonymous misinformation by writing, "Remember, #ACTA text was kept secret for years. This made knowing what it actually says almost impossible."

Almost impossible? The text was leaked routinely during negotiations. Ars wrote about the changing contents of the agreement for more than four years.

On April 21, 2010—nearly two years ago—the ACTA group officially released the consolidated draft text, which turned out to be quite close to the final version. (I still remember staying up until 3 am, waiting for the draft to be released in Europe in order to do a lengthy writeup on its contents.)

On November 15, 2010, the final ACTA text was released. All three versions are linked directly from the USTR's official ACTA page.

The process around ACTA was rotten, but those who claim today that the secrecy of it prevents them from accurately learning what's in it simply haven't bothered to look.

The ACTA Committee

ACTA sets up a new "ACTA Committee" (see Article 36). Sound scary? One EU group organizing an anti-ACTA petition thinks so. ACTA would "set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties—even prison sentences—against people they say have harmed their business."

But the Committee is administrative. It oversees the agreement text, it coordinates between member states, and it decides if other countries are allowed to join. Setting up such a new group outside the existing multilateral systems in place at organizations like WIPO creates problems—but they are more boring "governance" type problems instead of "shadowy" police problems.

The ACTA Committee expressly disdains such an enforcement role. "For greater certainty, the Committee shall not oversee or supervise domestic or international enforcement or criminal investigations of specific intellectual property cases," the ACTA text says. This is not Interpol for P2P networks, though ACTA does envision more direct contacts between existing international police units.

And yet we're still seeing stuff like this: "Customs agents will sift through your iPod playlist for illegally downloaded music and through your laptop for illegally downloaded movies." It could happen for other reasons, of course, but not because ACTA demands it.

Sweet sanity

The obvious danger in all this is that complete fabrications might be used to fan the flames of anti-ACTA protest in Europe, where the issue has become hot, hot, hot the last two weeks. (Poland is already making it clear that ACTA might not survive a ratification vote.) But misinformation only makes it easy for ACTA supporters to marginalize the opposition as irrelevant fanatics.

Fortunately, most of the digital rights groups are putting out decent information on ACTA. (See information from the EFF and EDRI, for instance.)

ACTA is the highest-level international IP agreement ever signed, and as such will be used by countries like the US as the new standard when negotiating free trade agreements and other deals. It incorporates stronger measures for things like ex officio searches, under which the government actually seizes goods it believes to be counterfeit without first getting a rightsholder complaint. The secretive process was ridiculous—what confidential information was ever at stake? And the attempt to use such agreements to bind Congress into ever-tougher IP enforcement is simply leading an entire generation of young people to disdain copyrights as the copyright lobby overreaches.

But these issues aren't as sexy. Much better, if you want to get people in the streets, to call it "SOPA cranked up to 11" and depict ACTA as a mandate for Internet monitoring and site-blocking. As a short-term strategy, it's clear that this works, but it's not a long-term recipe for countering the actual systemic problems around digital copyrights—of which ACTA is merely the latest symptom.

91 Reader Comments

You are welcome to your opinion, of course, but I do not think the job of politicians is to educate anyone. We have schools for that.

That's a joke. Did you even attend public school? I was never taught US law. The Constitution was just a drive-by and The Amendments were kept at an arm's length.

You can high-horse it all you want and, while I agree with you in many cases, your stance here is bullshit.

Obama's campaign was run completely on change and he unsettled the sedentary, latent American citizens to get off their asses and vote for him. Hiding behind status quo is for weaklings still attached to the nipple for sustinence. That wasn't the President that inspired the populace.

I did indeed attend 7 years of public school and 2 years of private school. You know what I noticed? I noticed that the biology education was seriously lacking. And now I'm upset at Obama for not posting up a educational overview of biology. I mean, I know its not in his job description and all, but I think every politician should take personal responsibility for rectifying every single inadequate program our nation produces, don't you?

I'll vote Republican this year because I did not get a better overview of biology in the classroom and Obama has not made it his personal responsibility to fix that.

Good talk. Vote for Ron Paul.

Um, why? Talking a lot does not mean that anyone's knowledge is being increased.

We're churning out our second generation in a row of pussies, this one worse than the last, who are destined to amount to nothing because although they were exposed to the knowledge they needed, they were never taught how to APPLY it, or the consequences of not doing so. A generation literally expecting a handout and handholding all the way through life, and if they file for bankruptcy it's the "systems" fault.

Um, you do know that human civilization has stated this about succeeding generations literally since the beginning of human civilization, right? They seriously have found this discussion on clay tablets from Sumeria...

I'll vote Republican this year because I did not get a better overview of biology in the classroom and Obama has not made it his personal responsibility to fix that.

Good talk. Vote for Ron Paul.

Um, why? Talking a lot does not mean that anyone's knowledge is being increased.

Was responding to the above portion of your statement.

I was being facetious. I care way too much about the direction this country is headed to let any single issue, and especially one based on my own imagination of how things 'should' work, distract from getting the guy re-elected who turned everything around. There are several things that I wish Obama would do, and a few things I flatly disagree with, but one thing he has done very well is make government *function* again(note: I said government, not congress, they are not one and the same). Everyone I know who has a government job who I've talked to has a very good opinion about how the agencies are managed and funded now vs the Bush years. Bush's largest accomplishment was stating that government does not work as a solution, then ensuring via mismanagement and misallocation that his statements were true.

He's made a ton of other long range bets that make a ton of sense. Ending a lot of support for Ethanol in favor of nuclear loan guarantees and investment in algae and other advanced biofuels is a great example.

This article in itself reads a bit like hyperbole and spin to be honest in support of the bill

I am sure before the patriot act was voted in people were saying "well yes it COULD be used for doing that kind of stuff, but the act isnt saying it HAS to be done, and I'm sure the government would never dream of using it to do such things......"

And then they did

The clearest example of that which I noticed was the ipod section

"One of our first articles on ACTA debunked the idea that rightsholders and countries wanted to use the treaty to search individual iPods for infringing music and movies at the border. That was never a goal, and the final ACTA text makes clear that countries may decide not to bother with "small quantities of goods of a non-commercial nature contained in travellers’ personal luggage."

And yet we're still seeing stuff like this: "Customs agents will sift through your iPod playlist for illegally downloaded music and through your laptop for illegally downloaded movies." It could happen for other reasons, of course, but not because ACTA demands it"

First it claims

"One of our first articles on ACTA debunked the idea that rightsholders and countries wanted to use the treaty to search individual iPods"

So its debunked? The bill DOESNT allow people to pry to that extent? PHEW!!!!

Oh, but hang on a sec

"the final ACTA text makes clear that countries may decide not to bother with "small quantities of goods of a non-commercial nature contained in travellers’ personal luggage."

MAY not decide? So it DOES infact say they CAN, just not that its compulsory in every single instance. But if the government is having a slow week of prosecutions or fine based fund raising theyre still able to tell inspectors to be more meticulous

Hell, a police office "MAY decide" not to prosecute you for speeding, selling drugs or practically anything really. But just because they "may" decide not to doesnt mean they cant which is whats being implied here

The fact that they have the ability to "decide not to" do something also doesnt state nor imply that the "norm" once in law wont be to do it as routine with not doing it being the exception.

Infact if anything the wording saying they "may" choose to NOT do something rather than stating that they "may" choose TO do it does sort of lend itself to doing it being the majorative norm with NOT doing it being the exception which MAY be chosen on occassion

So I dont think the anti protestors are anywhere near as paranoid as being claimed. And what should be being objected to is the scope the vague wording legally allows rather than a clear and specifically worded scope of what is and isnt going to be a result of this if made into law

Because the trawling through someones ipod at customs is quite clearly being given the green light by default with the option to choose to skip an ipod or two by choice in busy periods and nothing really states that isnt the case or wont be if passed into law

After the patriot act I would have thought US citizens would have stopped being gullible enough to just "assume" their government wont abuse vaguely worded laws if they can sneak them past the population and yet once again here is one that seems to be receiving far less objection than it should be

It doesn't matter if he isn't on the ballot; vote Bush or you aren't a patriot.

Jeb, Jr., or Sr.?

You forgot quite a few. Men and women of the Bush dynasty are your obvious rulers duly elected public servants. It doesn't matter which Bush you vote for, just vote Bush. The important part is that the dynasty be preserved. Any True Patriot would understand that the only thing that matters is having a Bush in charge of the White House.

Thinking about things, making your own decisions and having origional thoughts are all classed as unpatriotic by the patriot act

If you find yourself without an opinion on something and find yourself nowhere near a newspaper or TV that can tell you what your opinion is supposed to be I'm sure theres a government helpline you can phone where somebody can tell you what your own person views and opinions (from the list of government approved views and opinions) is supposed to be on that topic

You shouldnt go around having your own thoughts and risk being spirited away in the middle of the night by the obamastazi